In the early 1980s, research by Larry Strayer, Brian Pohanka, Harris Andrews, and William Frassanito uncovered documentary evidence suggesting that this image of Union forces was taken by Andrew J. Russell just before the Second Battle of Fredericksburg in the spring of 1863, not at Petersburg Virginia, as the caption for the image among NARA's holdings of Brady photographs notes. A group of five Russell photographic prints bearing Fredericksburg references in their captions, including another copy of this image, can be found in the holdings of the Western Reserve Historical Society (WRHS) in Cleveland, Ohio. The hand written caption on the WRHS copy of the photo (presumably by A. J. Russell the photographer) is “Line of Brooks' Division at Fredericksburg, May 2, 1863. Rebels charged here 20 minutes after the picture was taken but were repulsed and driven back.”

As well, the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center has this same photo listed with a Fredericksburg origin, and a smaller archive at the Medford, Massachusetts Historical Society has it listed as “Entrenched Union soldiers, May, 1863” which corresponds to Fredericksburg rather than Petersburg."